Making waves as a sound designer with Simon Keep

Simon Keep is a sound artist, musician, researcher and educator. He is the founder of Holkham Sound and has created sounds for film and TV, and he also runs a music charity called Clip.

In this episode, Simon talks all about the role of a sound artist, how he teaches students to be creative with sound and some of his favourite sounds that he's collected.

Instagram: @holkham

Website: https://www.holkhamsound.com/

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Transcript

Matt: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Teach, Inspire, Create podcast. I'm your host, Matt Moseley, Chief Examiner for Art and Design at UAL Awarding Body. Each episode, I speak to artists and creative [00:00:15] industry leaders about their experience of teaching and being taught, who or what inspires them, and we explore creativity in their work with the hope of showing you that there are infinite ways to be creative in the arts.

Matt: Today my guest is [00:00:30] Simon Keep, sound artist, musician, researcher and educator. He is the founder of Holkham Sound and has created sounds for film and TV. He also runs a music charity called Clip. In this episode, I'm going to be talking to [00:00:45] Simon about the role of a sound artist, how he teaches students to be creative with sound and his favorite sounds that he's collected. There is a transcript available for this episode. Please click the link in the episode description so you can read as you [00:01:00] listen.

Matt: Hello, Simon. 

Simon:Hello, Matt. 

Matt: Welcome. Thank you very much for joining us on the Teach Inspire Create podcast. It's great to have you here.

Simon: Thank you. Thanks for having [00:01:15] me.

Matt: So, we usually kick things off with our guests by taking them back to where creativity entered their world. Is there a sort of a story, a journey into this?

Simon: [00:01:30] Yeah, there is - can I hijack it? 

Matt: You can hijack it.

Simon: …and say okay, when I'd like to… for me everything starts with listening and it would be great if we could… what I often do in a lot of my sort of workshops and things is talk about what we call the sound of the week. [00:01:45] A sound of the week is you have a sound that's had some kind of impact on you over the last week or so. It could be kind of a random sound, it could be music you're listening to, it could be something that you heard in a film or anything.

Matt: Yeah. I'm game for this. 

Simon: Okay. We run it in all our sort of workshops and things. So [00:02:00] shall I go first? 

Matt: Yes, of course. 

Simon: Okay. So my sound of the week is Japan, and specifically I watched a film recently by Vim Vendors called, Perfect Days.

Simon: And I love the main - sort of - character in it [00:02:15] has an alarm clock, but it's not a clock, it's the sound of someone sweeping the street. Because there's people sweeping streets with basically like a stick with loads of mini stick, a really old fashioned sort of broom. It's basically just like loads of sticks bundled together and it makes this [00:02:30] like scratchy sound and that is his alarm clock and it… It follows him throughout the several weeks, but you don't really associate that that's his alarm clock. But then after you've seen him and heard him wake up several times, you think that's really clever. That, that, that level of [00:02:45] sort of subtlety within the sound design, I just really love it. 

Matt: And how to tie a narrative, you know, with a, a sort of a sound that revisits you through a film that kind of creates a tempo of its own, doesn’t it?

Simon: Yeah, very sort of rhythmic and that [00:03:00] happens… yeah, the day starts, he wakes up. And it says a lot about, I guess, the sound of Tokyo as well. Like, there’s people still sweeping the streets with brooms. 

Matt: So, I mean, what is a sound designer? 

Simon: Lots of different things. It is one [00:03:15] of those terms that it's hard to pin down. Because people now talk about sound design within music, like that sort of glitch, electronica, hyper glitch, has got lots of sound design in it. But then, yeah I'd say sound design, in terms of the context of film and [00:03:30] TV, is the sound director. It's the person that has that overall concept of how a film should sound and the types of sound that we use and on a large project, a sound designer would employ a whole team of sound people below them. But in the types of film that [00:03:45] I'm working on, it's like a very overall term, like the sound designer. I'm doing everything.

Matt: Yeah.

Simon: But you can also be a sound designer, it doesn't necessarily need to be in film. You can do… I've done projects where I've designed, like, the way an object [00:04:00] should sound or the, you know, like a ringtone or something like that or I don't know. There's a mechanical sound, I'm the person that designs what the, when you don't put your seatbelt on in your car and it makes that beep. That's a sound designer. I mean, I guess it's a really confusing term. One of my colleagues always calls me a [00:04:15] sound collector. It's very hard to determine what that is.

Matt: So is that what you do? Do you have an archive of sounds? Are you always kind of collecting sounds? 

Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got loads of sounds and I kind of sell them onto sound libraries and things. 

Matt: Oh, right.

Simon: Yeah, there's so many different things you could do [00:04:30] with sound.

Matt: Could you tell us about a few sounds that are in your collection? 

Simon: There's a sound I have actually, it's the Japanese abacus, it's called a soroban. It's basically, it's like a counting machine and when you shake it, it makes this [00:04:45] kind of rattle and I've used that foley prop on so many different things from the sound of a robot or wings flying or someone throwing something on the ground.I've used that sound for everything. 

Simon: One of my favorite sounds, um, was recorded on New Year's [00:05:00] Eve in Switzerland, and it was the sound in the mountain of fireworks. So you've got the fireworks going off and they're kind of reverberating round the mountains and the glacier, which sounds incredible because you hear it here, you hear it here, you hear all of it and it really describes the [00:05:15] sound of the place. But also, there's someone playing - I never saw the instrument so I don't know what it is, it could be like a French horn, a trombone - but playing this instrument into the mountain at the same time. So you get the kind of fireworks, [00:05:30] but you also get this really like sad, lonely trombone in this, in this landscape, just playing this like lament…

Matt: Which is really in contrast to the New Year's Eve celebratory…

Simon: So that's one of my, yeah, that's one of my favorite sounds that I’ve recorded.

Matt: So we're aware that you have used your sound design, sound artistry skills, in film. Is there a particular film that you're working on at the moment?

Simon: A film about the Arthurian legends called Matter of Britain and it [00:06:00] is based on the original text, Matter of Britain.

Simon: It's a community film and it's basically got everyone from this, the director's village in the film, but it's, it's kind of mixed between sort of documentary. It's about farming, it's about these legends and how [00:06:15] these legends are ingrained within the sort of landscape. Within the sound design, there's two sections. Some sections, which are like the fantasy legends which are about the kind of knights, but it's all kind of very mundane.They're just kind of wandering around the cattle shed on their sort of little [00:06:30] quest. 

Simon: But the sound design is very distinct between that and the sound design of like documentary, like farming machinery and things and cows being milked. That's very… so you've got these kind of distinct styles of sound design to bring you into the different kinds of worlds.

Simon: But we're, we're working on this metaphor [00:06:45] as, as sort of body and how like we've got the sound design is very bodily and visceral.

Matt: As the sound designer, like how does that process begin? Do you take direction or are you artistically licensed to create sound [00:07:00] that's, you know? You're making those decisions. How does that process work?

Simon: Yeah. So I'll work with the director, we'll kind of discuss things. I'll ask what the narrative, what conceptually he wants to happen with the sound in this particular film. Yeah, so for a period of discussions and we try things [00:07:15] out, we kind of figure out what the sort of the sound concept is and kind of work.

Matt: So it's a collaborative process. 

Simon: Yeah, it's definitely collaborative. And as a creative process, it's so interesting working with someone and it's not just your own ideas, and there's nothing like, I don't know, just [00:07:30] expanding all your ideas and different directors you go in and work with someone who's like, no, that doesn't really work for me. And you're like, okay, how can I try this in a different way? But I just love that collaborative process of working with someone.

Matt: How do you find that the kind of [00:07:45] collaborative creative process changes with different people?

Simon: Yeah, different people have their different ways of working and things they want to achieve, but I think you just have got to start from the very beginning. What is the purpose of the sound in this film? What are you trying to communicate? What's this sort of [00:08:00] concept? And kind of figure out, because there's so many different things you can do with the sound. Not just the types of sound you use, but the way it's processed. I'm not very good at making things sound correct. I'm not really, I'm not really a sound engineer. So when I work on something, I, it's quite [00:08:15] sort of experimental. 

Simon: And we were, I was talking with this director initially, and I've got this special microphone called a, um, Geophone and it's basically this, this, this metal block on a big spike and you stick it into the ground and you can record like earthquakes and things. It recalls those sort [00:08:30] of low level sounds. We’re saying, oh yeah, we're talking about Earth, we should do some recording of this so we can get these really subsonic sounds and use that in it. So I'm really interested in the idea of, of the sounds around us and all those things, but other sounds that maybe are there that you can't always hear or that are kind of hidden or

Matt: Yeah. You are [00:08:45] an artist. Sound is one of your mediums, isn't it? For producing, essentially fine artwork a lot of the time. Is a lot of how you would approach the sound work for a film artistically led, really, rather than a, as you say, you're not a [00:09:00] traditional sound designer?

Simon: Yeah, definitely. I would say it's definitely artistically led rather than, yeah, and conceptually led, um, all of those things rather than just making something sound correct or making something...

Simon: Yeah, I don't know, I like the way that sound design can disrupt things as [00:09:15] well. And it's not just something that kind of smooths over film, you can really be quite emotive with it, or really kind of just disrupt what you're seeing as well.[00:09:30]

Matt: You're an artist, sound artist, sound designer, musician. How did that kind of come around, that combination of things?

Simon: [00:09:45] Honestly, probably survival, I guess, finding work and kind of making a career. And I think that's a really efficient way of, of working, just being really multifaceted and just all these kinds of different projects. I've found that has really helped my [00:10:00] career a lot because you can move from different things. You meet lots more people, lots more kind of creative people. You know, I think if I was working on one thing… and I don't know, I think it's really interesting as well and it kind of pushes you. 

Matt: Yeah absolutely.

Simon: As a person it pushes your own creativity, [00:10:15] having to sort of quickly switch out of one mode and do something else. And they, each of them benefit each other. When I was a teenager, I really wanted to be a painter, but I had that sort of vision of a the studio with a big canvas chucking paint around. [00:10:30] Yeah, that's what I wanted to be. And then I went to art school in Norwich on a painting degree. And then I just, I went on an Erasmus exchange program to Norway and that for me was the thing that really changed. There [00:10:45] was a few things in my sort of creative career, whatever that have changed, but that was the big thing.

Matt: So was it a sort of sliding doors moment? 

Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. 

Matt: Like what happened in Norway? 

Simon: Well, it's just like the sonic environment really impressed me, and it [00:11:00] really impacted on the way I perceive the world. And there's a few things, I remember getting the train, it was in Trondheim, and I got the train, I sailed over to Oslo and then got this train that was like 20 hours or whatever it was, and going on the train like this experience of going [00:11:15] through a really small tunnel and then kind of open out to this huge expansive space and what that did sonically… Like you could almost hear how huge that space was going from something small to something big.

Simon: And I think that affected me a lot. But I think that [00:11:30] kind of expanse of silence in that north part of Norway, like I can remember going cross country skiing and, cross country skiing is amazing, there's no, you don't get towed up a mountain with a ski lift. You’re just out on your own. 

Matt: You don't see anyone.

Simon: You don't see anyone. Yeah. And I can remember being in [00:11:45] this, I don't know, like this huge open space and it's like you're on, it's like the world's an egg and you're right on the top of it. And I think they took my glove off or something. And the sound of my hand coming out of the glove was so loud. 

Matt: Yeah, because there's nothing else.

Simon: Yeah, there's [00:12:00] nothing there. And then, but the more you listen to it, it kind of, that space expands and you realize, actually, I can hear something that's probably several miles away. What's that animal sound or? But that way of experiencing the world through sound had a massive impact [00:12:15] on me and, um, the, the way you can send your ears out into the world. So you can be sitting here, but actually, I can listen to what's in this room.

Simon: I can listen to beyond this room. I can, I can maybe listen to what's going on upstairs.

Matt: Every sound's got a story, hasn't it? It [00:12:30] originates from somewhere. Something else is happening in the world, isn't it? You're being informed of this or communicated to in a very literal but also conceptual way by the sound aren't you? Is that part of why you love mountain biking these days, to have [00:12:45] that adventure into the space?

Simon: Yeah, I think so, yeah. And it's about, yeah, about being the same thing in the middle of nowhere. 

Matt: Away, lost. 

Simon: Away, yeah, lost, yeah, lost slightly. I don't know, I definitely feel like being a [00:13:00] creative and a sense of adventure are the same thing.

Matt: Yeah.

Simon: And I feel like…

Matt: …sort of inquisitive minds. 

Simon: Inquisitive, curiosity, all of those things. And it's the same kind of thing of like exploring.

Matt: Do you take sound recording equipment ever with you on your bike? 

Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. I take lots of recordings of things.

Matt: So you're always capturing stuff? 

Simon: Yeah, even if it's just on the phone or…

Matt: If anyone's listening and they're thinking about how they might start capturing sound, is it perfectly adequate to just capture stuff on your smartphone or whatever?

Simon: I love. Everything [00:13:30] has a different quality, right? Okay, so, I can remember being like a teenager and doing loads of stuff recording on tapes and always thinking I really hate that fuzz. Is there a way to get rid of it? And now when I work with my students with tape, they're like, Oh, I love that fuzz. So everything [00:13:45] has its own sort of quality.

Simon: So even a mobile phone, the microphones on there are very unique and they capture a certain type of sound, which I actually really love that sort of, it's like a compressed sound. It kind of recalls everything at the same sort of level. Um, if [00:14:00] you saw the waveform, it would just be like a, Thick, like a block of sound.

Matt: Does that make it more difficult to edit with and do things with though, or?

Simon:  I don't, yeah, I don't think, if you wanted to do something perfect, it probably would, but if you wanted more of the, I don't know, I just love that emotive quality of a [00:14:15] field recording of a random sound, even if it is recorded on the phone.

Simon: I've also got some amazing microphones that record 360 degrees, ambisonic microphones. I use a lot of that in my work.

Matt: Could you give us an example about where different microphones have been used in different [00:14:30] projects?

Simon: Okay, so I worked with the late choreographer, Rosemary Butcher, on several projects and there was a project about memory. So I used a lot of tape for that, when I was recording things, I was making tape loops. And it had this very, kind of like, swelchy [00:14:45] tape sound that was degrading a little bit. So that's when I'd use that kind of microphone for that kind of project. But then, maybe if I'm making music, I might use a… chuck a couple of mobile phone recordings in there because they have a different [00:15:00] quality to them.

Matt: Can we [00:15:15] talk a little bit about your charity that you run in Colchester?

Simon: Yeah. So, Clip Sound and Music, we've been running officially as a charity or community interest company for five years, but aside that we've been running more like 10 years, but we [00:15:30] provide free music and sound workshops for young people in the area.

Matt: Yeah. 

Simon: Um, I'd say that as a project, that is the, I'm so proud of that project.

Matt: What does a workshop look like for a young participant with [00:15:45] Clip?

Simon: Okay, so last week we did a workshop about graphic scores with a group of maybe fifteen, 11 to 15 year olds.

Matt: Can you just define what a graphic score is just for the listeners?

Simon: Okay, so a graphic score is like [00:16:00] musical notation. You have a piece of musical notation that tells you about the notes and where to play the notes and how fast and all that kind of stuff. But a graphic score is more, it's slightly more abstract. You can write a graphic score and it tells you more about how, like the texture of a sound [00:16:15] or how a sound makes you feel or those kind of things.

Simon: So you can score and write music and we did it in the context of John Cage did a lot of these kind of graphic scores. We just do a couple of scribbles and hand them over to a group of classical trained musicians [00:16:30] like “play that”. So with all these young people, we basically got them to draw all these kind of sounds. I was just shouting words at them like onomatopoeias and things and they had to quickly transcribe that as a shape, a pattern and then they did the same thing with a musical instrument and then [00:16:45] they had to score something with those diagrams, and then they had to perform it, which was amazing to see.

Simon: I just love the fact that age group is, you'll introduce them to John Cage, they're picking up, one of the instruments was like an egg timer. And they were listening to the egg [00:17:00] timer transcribing, like, maybe symbols or drawings for three sounds that thing made. Put that in a sequence as a piece of music and then try to play and they were kind of performing with all these tiny objects.

Matt: Yeah. So in terms of your kind of participatory [00:17:15] work, who else do you work with?

Simon: There's another group in Suffolk that I've worked with on quite a few projects, and they're a group of adults with varying degrees of visual impairment. So for them sound is, like, their [00:17:30] world and I, yeah, I really love working with them as a group because in a way, that's how I perceive the world, but also they just perceive it on a whole different level.

Simon: They can hear things that I can't hear, and the way they talk about [00:17:45] sound and how they, the kind of meaning and how they perceive it and how they interpret sound is so, I don't know, inspiring and just fascinating.

Matt: I wanted to, as well, talk to you a little bit about your work as a [00:18:00] musician. So you're in a number of bands aren't you? Is there a band, a particular band?

Simon: Yes, so I've got a couple of musical projects. Two of them that are most active is one called Last Days of Living and that's as the title suggests, a sort of [00:18:15] ambient drone project. I'm working with a friend of mine in Pittsburgh, he does stuff on tape, I do stuff on tape, we just sort of send things across the Atlantic to each other and yeah, we've got some releases as that, in that kind of, um, in that sort of [00:18:30] ambient sort of duo.

Matt: Because sometimes one of the most difficult things for people is maybe to start something or to reach out to someone or to kind of set the parameters of a creative working collaborative relationship. So do you have any advice for people [00:18:45] about how to kind of get started working with someone?

Simon: If you're at art school and you work, I mean, definitely the people around you are the people that are going to go forward in their careers at the same time as you and kind of support each other. That's probably how my, my [00:19:00] network of creatives started out. I can almost trace it back to sort of one person.

Simon: It just goes out from there. There's so many ways to sort of contact people now, like there's so many sort of discords for different types of musical, different sort of creatives. Something, something a bit about being a creative is about that kind of, [00:19:15] that sense of, I don't know, exploring things, that sense of curiosity. So just, I think you just always got to be curious and looking for new ways to do things and new people to work with. You can't really stop or slow down. 

Matt: I think it's just kind of everything's a risk [00:19:30] to a certain extent, isn't it? But through risk comes reward in many ways.

Simon: Yeah, definitely and I think a creative person will naturally have a sense of being able to take risks.

Matt: And what about your other band? So you mentioned that you've got…

Simon: I did some, I'm in a sort of [00:19:45] prog, folk, drum and folk outfit called Fishclaw. We were recording yesterday in a studio, a very sort of beautiful studio in Suffolk called Decoy. Yeah, we're kind of working on… that's another project where everyone lives in a different place now.

Simon: Like we're [00:20:00] still gigging and things, but the process is a lot slower. I'd say work, working with people in different parts of the world is cool, but it's often a lot slower to get things going. 

Matt: They're quite disparate musical worlds in a way, aren't they? I mean, I'm [00:20:15] sure there are combinations of things, but are they genres of music that you've always been interested in? Or were you just kind of invited into that world through your creative connections?

Simon: Well, I guess the ambient music, all the way into drone music [00:20:30] is more like, so for me, Sonic Arts, it's like a pure version of the thing that I'm doing in film or the thing that I'm doing. The ideas I have for Clip or any of these things, that is, that's where that, all that kind of sonic exploration kind of [00:20:45] leads to that kind of deep listening, slow sound experience.

Simon: But the other band, Fishclaw, is quite manic and it's quite, it's folk and actually my instrument of choice is an accordion and that music is quite [00:21:00] fast and dancey. So yeah, they are definitely at opposite ends.

Matt: You're a creative educator as well, aren't you?

Simon: Yeah, and I definitely see that as part of my creative practice.

Simon: I feel like educating and working, like [00:21:15] teaching, all these things, it's a collaborative process, and I think that's where it works best. But yeah, I do, yeah, enjoy that. 

Matt: Do you particularly look to introduce sonic arts to the students at the college? 

Simon: Yeah, definitely. I think expanding, like, those people's horizons about what is possible so they're not limiting themselves.

Matt: So what sort of, kind of, processes, techniques do you introduce them to? Is there a, is there a kind of a [00:21:45] simplified way into it that you create for them?

Simon: I guess my go to workshop is a turntablism workshop, where you're breaking up records, sticking them back together, playing them, sticking different textures on them.

Simon: Very much like the sort of Graham Dunning [00:22:00] kind of approach. But yeah, making all these textures, because it's very physical, and you can kind of stick sandpaper things, you can still play these things. Then I'll reflect that with a digital DJing session where they'll go out making field recordings and [00:22:15] then DJing those kind of field recordings like they’re records and things. So going out, going out for a walk and recording the sound of a till in a shop or the sound of their footsteps and then kind of like mixing those together like it's- like they're a DJ and they're kind of creating something new.

Matt: [00:22:30] Yeah, and so it's about, kind of, giving people an accessible everyday familiar way to create sound.

Simon: Yep. All these things are possible. It is a part of your creative practice. You can incorporate these things in just a listening game or a [00:22:45] listening walk or game.

Simon: All of these things, they're quite, yeah, they're quite simple. Just to get people into that, um, that kind of zone where they're using their ears and they're interpreting the world with their ears and telling stories through sound. Because it's easy to, well, it's easy [00:23:00] to do visually, isn't it? We kind of understand it, how to do it.

Simon: But yeah, with sound. Yeah. I don't know, I feel like technology is irrelevant really when you're working on sound. You don't always need the top spec equipment or, and [00:23:15] especially to do it, you can just, I love the clip sessions where we just have a piece of paper and some felt tips and we kind of do a session about sound like that.

Matt: And there's also not necessarily a requirement to actually capture the sound. The sound can be momentary, transient, [00:23:30] experiential. It doesn't have to be a kind of recorded play backable thing, does it?

Simon: Yeah. I mean that's sort of part of the charm, isn't it, with sound? That you kind of, you hear it and it's gone, isn't it?

Matt: Which probably takes us back to the sound of the week. 

Simon: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:45] 

Matt: So on my sound of the week, uh, which is actually a sound, it's kind of a sound of every week, in fact it's the sound of every day. So, we have two dogs, Biscuit and Goose, and they sleep in our living room and by the door of our living room is quite a large wooden [00:24:00] cabinet.

Matt: When banged, it sounds like a drum. It's very loud. And my dog is a Bedlington Whippet, so he has this whippy tail. And so every morning when I come downstairs, before I hear anything else, I start hearing this rhythmic drumming on this [00:24:15] cupboard door as Goose's tail just, and it's always very, it's very rhythmic, very timely, and it makes me feel incredibly happy.

Matt: I know as soon as I open the door, I'm going to be greeted by this incredibly warm, friendly welcome. I often wonder if [00:24:30] it's conscious because, yeah, she has to stand in a certain way to make sure. I, I think that there probably is something about animals enjoying making sound. Why not? Why wouldn't there be, I suppose?[00:24:45]

Simon: I think that's also a wider question about creativity as well, isn't it? What is the thing that makes something creative? I mean, is your, yeah, is your dog really creative? Because it's kind of figured out that that's a good way to get your attention. Someone else might have a completely different reaction [00:25:00] to sound.

Simon: That sound might, to someone, ah, that dog's waking me up again. It's really sort of personal, isn't it, that reaction to sound? I think that's why, I mean, it sounds very hard to work with. Because someone's, like, interpretation or someone's reaction to sound can be very different to someone [00:25:15] else.

Simon: So it's a different, completely different sort of meanings. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Simon: And it's all instant and subconscious, isn't it?[00:25:30]

Matt: You mentioned that your work as a lecturer, as an educator, informs your creative practice. Can you tell us a little bit about how those two things form and maybe challenge one another?

Simon: I feel [00:25:45] really privileged to be working with these people because I feel, I do feel like I'm on their creative journey at the same time, especially on this sort of art foundation, you kind of feel like you're all kind of experiencing that as well. Whether it's just kind of testing out ideas that I've got or different ways of working. [00:26:00] But I think it's just about changing your, like, perspective and your viewpoint of your ideas and your kind of thinking and people challenging that and then you adapting that, and I don't know, I really feel it's a sort of collaborative process. And I think specifically with Clip there's a lot of [00:26:15] things that we've worked on that are direct influence on the young people that we've worked with, whether it could be a project, like we're, we work on lots of projects at the moment.

Simon: One of them is about a silk mill in Sudbury, and it's about the, the old sort of [00:26:30] looms, they work on like a punch card system. So it's basically strips of card with all these holes in them and there's, there's, they have like hundreds of them for every kind of weave, and they kind of feed them into this machine and it is like code, it's like computer code.

Simon: Well, when we looked at that and we were, and then we thought, oh, [00:26:45] that looks like a pianola roll. What would happen if you, that was a sound? And then you kind of made the sound on one of these punch cards and you printed out this sort, you weave this kind of silk from sound. 

Simon: So one of the projects we're working on is to do with that and that's a direct [00:27:00] result of a workshop. Clip has got a, we designed this instrument called the Photon Smasher. And that was a direct result of a workshop that we ran where we were kind of looking at…

Matt: Who came up with the name? 

Simon: Actually, I think it was my son. We were thinking about different names. 

Matt: I was going to say, it's [00:27:15] such a brilliant name for an instrument, the Photon Smasher.

Simon: Yeah. 

Matt: Yeah, sorry. How does the Photon Smasher work?

Simon: So, we were running a workshop about electromagnetic frequencies, like, using these different microphones to record that sort of spectrum where the sounds [00:27:30] coming out of kind of laptops, all sort of old technology. And we had a solar panel and I think someone just plugged the solar panel, crocodile clipped it into an amp and then shone a light onto it and it just made this amazing sound and we’re like ‘oh, that works!’.

Simon: Anyway, so then [00:27:45] we designed this instrument called the Phonestone, it's basically a solar panel and if you shine an LED light on it, it basically, it's a microphone that listens to light and it converts that into sound and you get all these kind of amazing sort of textures from it, depending on the [00:28:00] frequency, the LED. Because LEDs are kind of flashing on and off really quickly, aren't they?

Simon: You can't really perceive it with your eyes, but if you, you can hear that and you, but you kind of hear that as pitch. So the faster it's flashing, the higher the note. And it has loads of different textures. You can go around, yeah.

Matt: It's like sonic alchemy. [00:28:15] It's kind of like creating sound where there's no sound. You just need to create a photon smasher to get it out. That's incredible. That's a brilliant project.

Simon: We're running a DJ workshop and we pitched it for an [00:28:30] older age group, but the, it was a free workshop, but the kids that came along with sort of like six, seven and then, and we still run it because it's fine, but they don't really understand what a DJ is. You can talk to them about, ‘Oh yeah, there's these parties and like clubs and raves’ and they just, they [00:28:45] don't know what you're talking about, but you kind of put them in front of them, they just kind of put their hands on the turntables and just start just using it as an instrument.

Matt: Sliding faders and just.

Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Simon: And I think it's that, it's about, it helps you get to that point where you're just like, you're [00:29:00] just like forgetting everything you know. 

Matt: Uninhibited. 

Simon: Yeah, uninhibited and you're just kind of going for it.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, they are the best artists, aren't they?

Simon: That idea of like, you're just making something that is totally pointless and has no function, I think is really important.

Simon: There's the side of being a [00:29:15] creative where, like, we love creative people because they're really good at solving problems and things, but there’s also, I think, there's that side where you just have to do something that's pointless and has no purpose and no function. And I think that is what you have to get to.

Matt: Something we always ask our guests [00:29:30] is to set what we refer to as a creative provocation for our listeners. It can be an action or a takeaway or a thought that you'd like them to go on in their lives with. Do you have something that [00:29:45] you could share?

Simon: Maybe listening, maybe like a little ear cleaning game, where you just sit somewhere, close your eyes if you want to, and then just listen to different zones where you are. So you kind of listen around the sounds within your body. Anything that is in your body.

Simon: The second set of sounds is anything within the room that you're in. And then the third set of sounds is anything beyond the room you're in. That's like a warm up exercise, isn't it, if you were going for a run? To do a few stretches. That's like the [00:30:15] equivalent of stretching before you kind of do any kind of work, but just sitting down and kind of listening to sounds within, yeah, within your body, within kind of range, then sounds within the room and just listening.

Matt: Active engagement with listening. 

Simon: Yeah.

Matt: And do you ever challenge yourself to see how [00:30:30] far away you can hear? 

Simon: Yeah. Yeah. It's really fun. 

Matt: What's the further away sound that you can hear?

Simon: But then I kind of love the way with sound, like you, sometimes you imagine sounds. You have sounds that you have in your head that you don't listen to with your ears.

Simon: You maybe, I don't know, hallucinate a [00:30:45] sound or something. You think you've heard something, but you kind of haven't and I kind of love that the sound can exist like that as well.

Matt: Yeah. Look, Simon, thank you. That's a brilliant provocation. I'm going to definitely have a go at that. Probably on the, on the train or something on the way home.

Matt: [00:31:00] Thank you ever so much. 

Simon: Thank you.

Matt: Thank you for listening to this episode of Teach, Inspire, Create. A massive thank you to Simon. What an interesting guy. I certainly cleaned my ears out listening to him and I'm going to go [00:31:15] away and do some active listening in the world after this episode. If you want to know more about Simon and his work, you can go to his website, www.holkhamsound.com. You can find the link to this in our episode description. [00:31:30] Really hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please make sure you subscribe and share with a friend. And please do rate us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. It's so important for us to understand what you think of the show.

Matt: Thanks for listening, and until next time, [00:31:45] take care.